Hello all. This was a hand I played at live ½ NLH last night.

Context: I am a 21 year old winning poker player, particularly since I began playing live in 9/2017. I do not play that often as I am a student and work a summer gig. Prior to turning 21, I put in a lot of hands in microstakes online. This context is important because many times, solid players have a perception they can run me over with aggression, being a young guy. Villain is a TAG solid possible pro player, late 20's. Villain and I begin hand with similar stack sizes of about $320.



Action folds to V who raises $10 in middle position. Folds to hero in BB who calls with K 7.

Flop: 9 2 9

Hero checks, V bets $15, hero calls $15

(Pot $45 after max rake)

Turn: J

Hero checks, V checks.

River: J

Hero bets $30, V tanks and raises to $80, hero calls $50 after a brief tank.

V mucks, I ask if he had a small pair, which he concedes to.



Instead of commenting my thoughts on how I played it, you can tell me what I did wrong. Thank you!

Well, I will say I don't like the preflop call. I would 3! or fold your hand there (mostly fold). I am fine with the flop float, the turn check and the river lead. But calling the raise on the river??? That seems really spewy to me without a very specific read that V is a habitual bluffer as he may be doing this with Ace high which you can't beat.

is this a troll post ?????

That’s fair, I kinda agree with the preflop point, but he was raising and C betting often. About the river, I thought it was either a J or nothing, I don’t think he raises with an A unless I’m capable of leading and calling with a 9 (or K high lol). Also, I had a pretty strong physical read of weakness, and I’ve been playing well lately and I often don’t trust my instincts, which happen to be right a decent amount of the time.

No but I guess I suck right?

Cool. Then I will never say what you did was wrong then as all of us have made Hero calls with these types of reads. Just saying in a vacuum without that, calling the river raise is spew versus 95%+ of players at low limits.

Hey OP.

Firstly, I think I'd just fold to 5x. Possible pro player is making it 5x and folds to you. You're only getting 13:8 on a call preflop (even before rake), and it'll be hard to make money post w/ this hand. You can opt to play hands like this against fishier opponents.

Obviously flop call is good. You flopped decent, you could have the best hand, etc.

River I'm torn. I mean, we have the K so that makes less KJ possible. But really, there's no reason to believe this player type doesn't have a Jack here. People check call 9x all of the time to "slowplay", so he has a lot of incentive to check back a turned Jack.

So from there, he can have AJ (8), KJ (6), QJs (2), JTs (2). And obviously could've trapped turn with a big hand like JJ (1) or 99 (1). So that's 20 value combos.

So you're getting 3:1 on a call here. But the problem is, you can't just "count the bluffs". Because we say he raises 88/77/66/etc as a bluff (totally plausible hands as well), then we have a snap call. But if we're bluffing here to get him off slightly better (Ax) or a chop, who's to say he doesn't bluff raise those hands as well? I would rather check this hand since we have some showdown value, and then make a decision against a bet.

Yeah I agree, because a lot of the 1/2 players are pretty ABC... just could kinda tell this guy was above that level. And if wrong, oh well.

Thanks for the reply, I agree I should check the river and assess from there. That was my main issue with how I played the hand. Other than probably just folding pre.

Side note: this is a smart post and you should really observe how people play in certain houses. My first live NL was played at Foxwoods where people habitually fold to 3 bets. Then I played at Mohegan Sun and small rooms in NH and suddenly people are habitually calling 3 bets (3 bets were somewhat rare on Sunday when I played, for example, but literally none of them went uncalled). So there's definitely a "house" style preflop, and it might make sense to make it 40 here a nonzero amount if people are folding to 3 bets.

Yeah if I was going to construct a bluffing strategy with this hand included, I'd be making ridiculous overbets here. Like 75 into 45. And balance it with 9x and JhXh. Against this player type, I could see the dynamic evolving to where I could start doing this, but for now I'm fine just making normal bets and bluffing infrequently.


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How has no one pointed out the main mistake of the hand postflop, which is leading the river? All better hands call or raise, and all worse hands fold. River is a clear check.

Yep. I should never lead river here. But I guess that mistake means when he raises it’s either J or nothing.

FWIW I did mention that checking the river is a better option (though yes I could've been more explicit).

Call me crazy, but I think my mistake and his raise polarizes his range even more, so all in all it didn’t hurt me here. This along with the physical read I did have, not that it’s always correct.

Well **** we’ve got a ringer on our hands here.

3bet pre dude. Calling K7s from BB is not winning poker.

FWIW if this guy is playing online and people are sizing to like 2.25x - 2.5x, calling K7s is probably fine. 5x is obviously the way people have exploited the fact that guys will call inelastically preflop (if you have AK and he has K7 and he'll call 5x, why make it 2.5x?). But yeah, when people are making it this big preflop, as they do live, it's fine to just never give them action until you're ahead of their range.

Lol the pompous nature of poker forums... I’m not claiming to be an expert and know I made at least 2 mistakes, I wanted to see people’s opinions. Jesus...

I almost always fold K7s but I felt there was value in showing ability to defend against the guy raising a ton pre. Thanks for not being a douche during the thread tho I appreciate that for sure.

Are you that soft that someone telling you calling K7s from the BB to a 5x raise is -EV sends you into a triggered fit?

You must be related to MikeStarr.

I’m aware it’s -EV, thanks. Not throwing a fit lol. Not saying I’m a ringer.